I heard echoes of the problem in college dormitories and semiprivate maternity wards, at PTA meetings and luncheons of the Leagu
e of Women Voters, at suburban cocktail parties, in station wagons waiting for trains, and in snatches of conversation overheard at Schrafft’s. The groping words I heard from other women, on quiet afternoons when children were at school or on quiet evenings when husbands worked late, I think I understood first as a woman long before I understood their larger social and psychological implications.
This sentence would be taking advantage of "hyperbole" since it is using an exaggerated statement to further a basic idea--not to be taken literally that the fire actually "swallowed up" the house.